


icarus is flying towards an early grave

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, I Don't Even Know, at least i tried ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 15:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1231453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it starts out s l o w l y.</p>
            </blockquote>





	icarus is flying towards an early grave

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to do a Yumikuri thing for a while, now, since they are my SnK OTP, so I hope this does them justice!

It starts out slowly.

Ymir has always been the lone wolf, separated from all her peers by the trials and tribulations she’s been through – things that they could never even begin to imagine. It’s the way she likes it, after all; it is stifling to deal with the inquiries and meaningless remarks of others. She cannot look them in the eye without thinking that maybe they might be the ones she is forced to kill, when the time comes.

Most days never have any noticeable effect on the course of Ymir’s life.

That night, the dining hall is filled with the chatter of her fellow trainees, as usual; blind, joyful talk. Ymir can feel their relief, almost tangible in the warm summer air: relief that their God has at least given them one more chance, one more day to live and breathe and experience the joy of being able to feel.

She wonders how long it will be before some of those voices are silenced. How long until the canary stops singing.

Ymir idly blows on her tea to cool it, the bread on her plate going unnoticed, and rests her chin in the calloused palm of her hand, dull russet eyes sweeping the dining hall, the usual disinterested expression on her face.

To her, life has simply lost its color. Vaguely, Ymir can remember a time when everything was bright: a time of limpid dewdrops and cerulean skies and fields that stretched on for miles and miles.

But now, she is older, and sadder, and none the wiser for it.

The tea is badly made and tasteless. Ymir gulps the whole thing down anyway. It is far too hot and scalds her throat, but she is glad – the pain takes her mind off everything else, anyway.

“That tea looked like it was way too hot to drink.”

The tall brunette looks up. Or, more accurately, she looks down. The little blonde girl everyone seems to love is sitting opposite her, breaking her bread into smaller pieces. There’s silence for a long time as Ymir stares at her new companion, who continues to methodically do what she’s doing.

“What are you doing?”

It’s a simple question, without too much weight behind it, but the girl takes a long time to respond, eyes downcast.

“Sitting with you,” she says finally, still refusing to look directly at Ymir. “I thought you might be lonely, sitting all by yourself.”

“I like being lonely,” Ymir asserts firmly.

“No, you don’t,” the girl deadpans, and tosses a piece of bread into her mouth.

“Don’t tell me what I’m thinking,” Ymir snaps angrily, and stands. “It’s fuckin’ pretentious.”

She walks away, and finally knows who she is going to kill first, when the time comes.

* * *

 

“If you were going to cry,” Ymir whispers, right hand on her heart. “Then you shouldn’t have stayed.”

“The Recon Corps are where I was supposed to go,” Christa returns.

“None of us were _supposed_ to go anywhere.”

“You were,” says the small girl quietly, eyes fixated upon Commander Erwin. “You beat Connie easily.”

( _No shit_ , Ymir thinks acidly, because she has never really liked Connie Springer, and having to stay in the sidelines as he went up the ranks was the most difficult part of it all.)

“But you let me have the spot instead.”

“I thought you’d join the Military Police, okay?”

Reluctant words spill through clenched teeth and fall to the ground in a torrential burst, crimson blood from a freshly inflicted wound.

And just like that, everything is different.

Christa’s eyes do not waver from the stage, but her breathing changes noticeably; when she speaks, there is a hint of uncertainty hiding under a thin veil of crystalline clarity. “I thought it would be unfair to join the Military Police just because of someone else’s kindness.”

“It wasn’t _charity_ ,” Ymir hisses insistently, so loudly that a few heads turn for the briefest moment before returning their attentions to Commander Erwin. “I knew someone like you would never survive if you actually faced a Titan.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” says Christa, as the commander rounds off his speech by assigning them to groups. “I already have.”

* * *

 

“Can I ask you a question, Ymir?”

The sky is bleeding, Ymir thinks, and watches as the colors spray across the blank canvas. Muted oranges. Darkened reds. Sepia yellows. Head tipped back, muddy brown eyes close lazily. “Go ahead.”

Christa hums for a moment to herself, question dangling right on the tip of her tongue, before finally speaking.

“I was wondering what exactly you think of me.”

“Is that a question?”

“Okay, fine. What exactly do you think of me?”

Ymir keeps her eyes closed, front teeth snagging on her bottom lip.

 _To be perfectly candid_ , she wants to say. _You are my weakest link, Christa Renz. I know exactly who dies and who doesn’t, but the only person I never want to ever die is you._

_I would do anything to save your life, Christa Renz, and I have no fucking clue why._

It’s like a thousand daggers pressing into her back, waiting for the opportune moment to pierce her flesh and cause all her secrets to gush out in a stream of words, words never spoken by human tongues.

The price of love is life, Ymir realizes first, and it is the heaviest price to pay of all.

The second thing she realizes is that she is in love with Christa Renz – this small, diminutive girl to whom she would usually never even lend a second thought.

It is an odd revelation, especially to a human who has never known love’s sharp and bittersweet touch, but Ymir is quite certain that this feeling is the feeling that she’s only ever heard about in songs and stories.

She contemplates it for a while, turns to look at the blonde, and finally says: “You have very nice eyes.”

And though Christa scoffs, and pretends to be insulted, Ymir catches the fleeting trace of a gratified smile on her face.

It is sunlight, and sweetness, and everything that she used to love about life, all in one small gesture that bursts forth in a rare moment of felicity, and Ymir clings onto it for all that she’s worth.

* * *

 

Ymir finds Christa in her room one night, and catches the sheen of tears on her cheeks before Christa hastily wipes them away, turning to look at Ymir with a smile filled with false bravado. “H – hi.”

“If you were going to cry,” Ymir repeats roughly, stepping in and shutting the door behind her. “You shouldn’t have stayed.”

“No, it’s just…”

Christa looks up at her, knees drawn to her chest, and seems to make a very important internal decision.

“… do you ever feel like perhaps you would be better off dead?”

 _“We all would be”_ almost slips from Ymir’s lips, but she holds it back stubbornly, determined not to upset Christa even further. “Sometimes,” the brunette says, and tentatively moves closer. “But it’s important that we don’t lose hope.”

She’s spewing bullshit, and both of them know it, but Christa smiles tearfully at the sentiment.

“I’m going to die,” the blonde says faintly, and draws her blanket closer to herself as if to shield herself, blue eyes cast downwards. “But when I do, I’ll want it to be of my own blade.”

Ymir’s world has degraded into black and white, but suddenly she sees red; with a few strides, she stands above Christa, towering, and says harshly: “You are _not_ going to die. I won’t let it happen.”

No, no, not after all she’s done to protect the girl. Ymir will not see her efforts wasted. All her life, that’s all she’s ever been – a series of efforts made for other people that are thrown away and written off.

“Why not?”

“You don’t _know_?”

Ymir grabs Christa by the shoulders in a fit of frustration, and there is a flash of fear in the smaller girl’s eyes.

It stops Ymir right in her tracks.

Ymir has never liked herself, but seeing this – seeing the effect she has – it brings her self-hatred to a new level.

A shuddering breath; she releases Christa and draws back, struggling to form words.

How could she ever hurt her?

 _How_ could she ever hurt her?

“Damn it,” Ymir mutters, and runs a shaking hand through her hair, painfully aware of the concerned look that Christa is giving her. “ _Damn it_.”

There are no more words for the rest of the night; the comfort that silence brings settles over the both of them, and Ymir cannot help but feel that she is drowning.

* * *

 

“Hey,” Ymir says.

It is the day of their first expedition as part of the Recon Corps; Ymir and Christa will be positioned in different areas. It is a fact that she hates, of course, because how can Christa stay safe and well is Ymir is not there to protect her?

 The blonde girl turns from her horse to look at Ymir. The sun casts golden rays onto her face, and Ymir’s heart nearly stops.

_Fucking --- get it together._

(She’s an idiot and she’s in love, and maybe those things are more interconnected than she’s always thought.)

“Good luck with the expedition,” the smaller girl says.

“You too,” Ymir says, more abrasively than she’d planned, perhaps, because _damn_ , she is not good at this whole ‘kindness’ thing; if Christa had not come into her life, she might not have had a reason to be kind at all.

Christa merely smiles warmly in response, however, and strokes her horse’s mane gently, eyes holding a faraway expression in them.

 “Thank you for looking out for me,” she says suddenly, and turns to face Ymir squarely. “Really. I don’t know where I’d be if it wasn’t for you.”

Ymir is about to say _“I knew you’d probably die without me”_ or something similarly stupid and completely contrary to her real feelings when suddenly Christa’s arms are around her.

And this time her heart really does stop, skipping a few beats as the girl hugs her in the first loving gesture that Ymir has experienced in a long time.

Christa pulls away, and Ymir is surprised to find that there is a genuine smile on her own face.

“No problem,” the brunette says, and there is no abrasion or malice – just surprising warmth and emotion.

The world is dull and dark, but Christa is more vibrant than anything she’s ever seen before, and slowly, color returns to Ymir’s life.

It starts out slowly.


End file.
